So I have to put a disclaimer on here. No, I am not Ridley Pearson, nor will I ever be him. I'm just your average every day college girl here.

And for those of who you hate cliffhangers... I mean come on? What did you expect? This is me we're talking about here. At least over half of these chapters are cliffhangers. Y'all should start expecting one and complain when there isn't one (it only makes logical sense).

I just want to admit, this is my favorite chapter so far. It's so intense and awesome and I just LOOOOOVE it! I'm not one to brag about myself..but I'm really proud of the way this one came out. It worked a lot better than I expected and I'm really excited to share it with y'all. I hope y'all enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!

Chapter 36: Brown Eyes Turn Green

Charlene walked into the dining hall in a glorious mood. Today was her twenty-fifth birthday and she couldn't be happier. The plans for the ball tonight were already taken care of—which meant she had the whole day to enjoy instead of fret over the details of the event.

"Morning birthday girl." Terry said as she sat down in her seat at the table.

"Good morning to you, Terry." She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek before indulging in her breakfast.

"Wow, somebody's in a good mood."

"Of course I am! It's my birthday and for once I actually get the day to myself!"

"But I thought you got every day to yourself."

Charlene rolled her eyes and took a sip of her drink. "I mean…I don't have to worry about planning the ball tonight. I finished all of it yesterday."

"So what are you going to do with the rest of your day?"

He looked over at her and she could tell he was expecting a certain answer. She decided to play with that.

"I was thinking about going into the town and buying a new dress. You can come if you want, I'd love a second opinion."

She looked up at him and gave him a pleading look. But on the inside she was laughing. His expression turned sour. She knew shopping for new dresses was the thing he hated most.

"Well…if you really want to…it is your birthday after all." He mumbled.

And Charlene couldn't take it anymore. She burst out into laughter and Terry stared at her.

"You're not going shopping are you?"

"No. I just wanted to see your reaction."

"Ha. Ha. Very funny." He suddenly became interested in his food.

"But in all seriousness, I have no clue what I'm going to do today."

"We could go to the beach," Terry immediately offered. That told Charlene that he had a plan in mind.

"Hmm…how about after lunch?"

"That works," Terry said with a smile before continuing to eat his breakfast.

They finished breakfast in silence. When Terry finished he pushed his plate away from him and turned to Charlene.

"So…remember when we first met and all you wanted was to find a husband?"

Charlene eyed him suspiciously. Where is he going with this? "Yes…"

"Well it's been almost three years…so I was wondering why you changed your mind?"

"Changed my mind on what?"

"On finding a husband. It was your first priority then…I was just wondering why it isn't now."

Charlene thought about what he was saying. Surely there's a reason as to why he is bringing this up—but Charlene couldn't figure out what.

"I guess things changed. That's all."

"Well it's just that Willa and Philby got married right after they got to California, and then Finn and Amanda got married, and now they're having a baby…and it just seems like everybody's getting what you wanted so badly three years ago."

"What are you trying to say Terry?"

He shrugged, suddenly interested in the table. "I was just wondering why you haven't married some guy yet. You were so eager to marry Finn and now it's like you don't care."

"It's not that I don't care…it's not a lady's place to ask a man to marry her. The man's got to ask her. That's how it's always been done."

"So you're saying you're waiting on the right guy to ask you?"

"Yes. Why do you ask Terry?"

"Just wondering," Terry said before kissing on the cheek and leaving the room. "I'll come to your room and get you after lunch for our walk on the beach."

Charlene watches him as he leaves. She can't help but wonder if he's going to propose soon. They've been together three years. They're practically married! They live together, do everything together. He's basically king—he just doesn't have the title yet. Maybe that will all change soon.

The background fades to black around Terry. Slowly the background grows in color and rearranges itself into a new scene.

This time Terry is sitting at the desk, fiddling with something small in his hands. Charlene remembers the room as the one they share while they stay in California.

The scene seems familiar to Charlene. Then it hits her—this is how she found him before she was taken in the garden. They fought here about Maleficent. If only she could go back and smack some common sense into herself. She sounded ridiculous, now that she thought about it.

But Charlene hasn't arrived in the scene just yet.

Her point of view moves from showing Terry's back to his front. The point of view zooms in so that she can tell what is in his hands.

In his hands is a blue diamond ring. The gold band had something carved on the inside of it, but Charlene couldn't see it. The blue diamond was small but it was beautiful. The way the light reflected off of it mesmerized Charlene. The blue diamonds were rare in Florida and were only used in the finest jewelry.

Charlene instantly felt horrible. Terry must have paid a lot for that. She knew that they shared money all of the time, but this was different. It was obviously an engagement ring and she would have never asked him to spend that much on one.

Wait…Terry was going to propose?

The door opened and Charlene saw herself walk in, yelling.

"You're a drunken fool, you know that!"

Terry hurried to put the ring in one of the drawers so that she couldn't see.

But it wouldn't matter, Charlene wouldn't have noticed.

Charlene jolted awake. She was utterly confused by the dream she just had. Her eyes searched the room for something different, but found nothing.

She heard a moan and her mind immediately went to thinking her ghost of a brother was back.

Before she said anything, she heard a voice mumble something obscene. Charlene knew it wasn't Thomas now.

"Hello?" Her voice was weak, probably due to the fact that she hadn't eaten or drank anything since she got here—wherever here was.

"Somebody else is in here? Well ain't that just swell."

Charlene's eyes went wide, not that anyone could have seen that in the pitch black cell. She knew that voice: Terry.

"Terry? Is that you?"

She heard some shuffling. He was probably getting into a more comfortable position. But if he was chained to the wall like her, she knew getting comfortable was impossible.

"Charlie? Where are you?"

"On the wall across from the bars."

She heard some more shuffling and before she knew it Terry was right in front of her.

"Oh, Charlie," his voice was so compassionate and sweet. Charlene had missed that. She immediately felt better just by hearing his voice. His gaze was focused on the numerous cuts on her body. Charlene was sure she had bruises too, based on the pain. "You're hurt."

He reached up and cupped her head in with his hand. Charlene noticed that when he moved his arm he winced in pain. She moved his hand off of her face and waited for his eyes to meet hers.

"What's wrong with your arm?"

"Nothing," he mumbled, turning his gaze to the floor.

"You're lying to me. What happened? What did they do to your arm?"

"Nothing, Charlie. Don't worry about it."

He moved to sit on her right side, giving her a quick view of his right arm. On it was a nasty wound that looked as if it had been burned as well.

"Terry!" Charlene scolded him in her loudest whisper. "Your arm! It's…it's…"

"It'll be alright."

"No it won't, Terry. Let me see it."

"What are you going to do about it? There's nothing here that can help it."

"I can cover it up with a piece of clothing."

He eyed her suspiciously and a smirk slowly formed on his face.

"You want me to take off my shirt, don't you?"

"WHAT? No, of course not! I was going to rip a part of my sleeve off."

"Sure you were Charlie." He winked and nudged her with his left elbow.

"You're impossible!"

"Third house on the left," Finn whispered into Amanda's ear as they walked along the quiet streets of Anaheim. The sun about to rise. If they wanted to get to the safe house without Maleficent knowing, they would have to hurry.

They got to the door of the safe house his father had mentioned and knocked three times, then four times, then once.

They waited in silence for a few minutes before Jack opened the door for them. Finn and Amanda hurried inside and sat down in the nearest chairs. Amanda was trying her best to keep their son quiet, just as she had been doing for the past hour or so.

"Father, what are you doing here? You said you weren't coming with us!"

"Finn, I had to come and warn you."

"Another warning?" Amanda asked. She looked as if she was about to say something else, but the baby started crying and she started trying to calm him down.

"What warning?" Finn asked his father.

"Your sister, Isabel, and the pirate—"

"Captain Maybeck."

"Yes, him. They were both taken before getting to the safe house."

"WHAT?" Finn couldn't stand this. This meant the only person left was his wife. What was Maleficent planning?

"I'm sorry, son. But it seems as if you and your wife are the only two left."

"How do you know this?" Amanda asked. Something about her tone of voice suggested that she wasn't happy with Jack. But Finn figured that was because he had just told them that two more of their friends had just gone missing.

"I saw it myself."

"You saw them being taken?"

"Yes, my dear."

"And why didn't you try and stop it from happening?"

"What can an old man like me do?"

"So you just stood by and let them be taken?" Finn now knew that Amanda was beyond furious.

"What do you expect me to do, my dear?"

"Yell? Scream? Do something! If it had been Finn or I that had been taken, would you have just stood by and let them take us? Finn's your son for crying out loud!"

"Amanda, my dear—"

"Stop calling me 'my dear!'"

"Alright, I know you are furious now, but you must understand that an old man like me could not do anything to stop them."

"But you could have at least tried!"

"Then they might have taken me to—or worse, killed me."

"But you're already a 'dead man.' You said so yourself to us earlier! You've been 'dead' for years!"

"Amanda, you are taking my words out of context."

"Willa is your daughter! And you just let her get taken by your archenemy! What kind of father does that?"

The tension in the room was ridiculously high. Amanda and Finn's father stared at each other, neither wanting to concede to the other. Finn could have sworn he saw his father's eyes flicker green for a second, but it happened so fast Finn just thought he was seeing things.

Finn wasn't sure what to do. He knew the right thing to do was to stand by his wife, but she was attacking his long-lost father. Both were noble choices, but both would be the death of him.

"I was never Isabel's father," Finn's father whispered in a small voice. "She might biologically be my daughter, but she grew up in another household. She never has and will never see herself as my daughter. She will also never see me as her father." He took a deep breath. "She wouldn't want me to save her."

The emotional deepness of the statement rendered both Amanda and Finn speechless.

Charlene was on her knees, shaking with fear. There were tears streaming down her face. There were bruises and cuts all over her body, but you could still see her beauty—a quality that Jess had always been envious of.

Now that Jess looked, the room seemed to never end. She stopped worrying about that when a deep voice echoed through the seemingly endless room.

"Now, your majesty, Queen Charlene, I offer you a choice. Your life or his."

Out of no where, Terry appeared. He had awful looking wounds on his arms—a combination of blood and burns. Jess wasn't sure what could cause something like that, but she didn't want to know.

Jess also noticed his wrists and ankles were tied and his mouth had a gag in it. He was staring at Charlene shaking her head.

Jess glanced back between the two of them. It was obvious what was going on.

She was going to tell the unknown captor to take her life over his and Terry knew it. He was trying his best to convince her otherwise.

But upon studying Charlene's face more, she realized that she wasn't planning on giving up her life. Maybe Terry was convincing her not to sacrifice herself.

"So your majesty, who shall we kill?" The deep voice asked.

Charlene looked in the direction of the voice. Who the voice belonged to, Jess could still not see.

"Kill—"

Jess didn't want to open her eyes. She wanted to know what Charlene said. She searched for something that she could draw with, but found nothing.

Jess closed her eyes, trying to remember every detail of what she just saw. She might not be able to draw her dream down, but she was going do her best to commit the dream to memory.

Two of her friends were in a life or death situation. Charlene had the final word on who lived and who died.

Jess was hoping that she was wrong this time. But her hope was withering fast, for her dreams were rarely wrong.

Willa and Philby were escorted down the labyrinth of hallways in the dungeon. Philby had only been in the cell for a little less than a day, but he still had several wounds that were reopening upon being dragged through the halls.

Eventually they were led into a large stone room and pushed to their knees.

Even though the room was dark, he noticed her hand. He reached over with all the strength he had left and grabbed it. He started using his thumb to stroke her finger, like he did when she needed to relax. He hoped that him doing this would give her a little spark of hope.

He glanced in her direction and she gave him a quick-lived, weak smile. He mouthed the words "I love you" before the two guards suddenly left the room.

He gave her hand a quick squeeze for reassurance when Maleficent appeared at the other end of the room, a candle in hand.

"This room is too dark, I think we should change that, don't you?"

She snapped her finger and the entire room was immediately illuminated by hundreds of candles lining the walls.

"Now isn't this just precious. You two are such a moving love story. I must say, I'm very impressed. Something about true love is very hard to destroy. It's so precious and adorable but also so troublesome and annoying."

Willa knew Maleficent was talking, but she wasn't really focusing in on that. Against the wall behind her was a table. And on that table there were several flasks and bottles. Seeing the table brought her mind back to the house she grew up in.

"Momma! Momma!" Isabel yelled as she walked into the house. She just had to tell her about the latest trouble her brothers had caused.

Even though they had just moved into a bigger house near the castle, Isabel liked the fact that she could still yell and be heard all across the house.

When she didn't hear her mother reply, she continued down the main hallway toward her mother's bedroom. The door was open, which meant his mother wasn't in there.

Frustrated and confused, Isabel doubled back and headed up the stairs to the second floor.

"Momma! Are you up here?"

Still no reply. Something about the whole situation was off. Her mother always answered when she called.

Isabel reached the top of the spiral staircase and immediately heard some whispering coming from one of the rooms at the end of the hall. She looked at the floor and saw that there was a green light coming out from the bottom of the door.

Isabel slowly tip-toed up to the door and opened it, trying her best to avoid making any sound.

Inside she saw something that was hard to describe.

Her mother had her back turned to Isabel and was messing with flasks and bottles, chanting something incoherent as she went.

Isabel watched as she moved throughout the room, mixing certain flasks with certain bottles. Some of the liquids would stay the same, but others would rapidly change colors and sometimes even produce a little smoke.

Isabel's mother paused for a second and drank one of the flasks at the end. The liquid inside was a deep green color with lime green sprinkled in. Her mother cringed, as if the liquid tasted bad, but quickly regained her composure and continued on with what she was doing.

Isabel had had enough of the confusion. She wanted answers. Now.

"Momma?"

Isabel's mother turned around so fast it scared her. Her eyes were green—which threw Isabel off. Her mother's eyes are brown.

"Isabel! Get out of here!"

The voice didn't belong to her mother.

Out of fright, Isabel fled the room and ran back down the stairs. There was something going on, but Isabel feared that if she dug deeper she would find the truth.

And it was the truth that scared her the most.

Willa was brought out of her flashback by Philby squeezing her hand. She quickly glanced around the room and found the table again. On the end of the table was a flask with the same green liquid in it.

There was something in that liquid that had changed her mother and Maleficent was in possession of it now.

Did Maleficent do that to my mother? Willa asked herself.

"Now, my dear Princess Isabel. There is something you must know."

Willa brought her attention to Maleficent, who was now only a few feet away from her. Willa was still confused as to why she was here with Philby. Was she here just to give us information? What could she possibly gain from that?

"You must have been worried about your family all those years spent in that horrible cell of yours. I now can give you some clarity concerning that, if you wish."

"You killed them all, I am not stupid." Willa retorted back without breaking eye contact. She was not in the mood for one of Maleficent's mind games that she was notorious for doing back in the four years Willa spent in her castle.

"No, my dear you are not. You're very intelligent, actually. Quite impressive for a woman of your age. But I must say you were fed false information. One of your family members died a long time before you thought."

"What does that even mean?"

"It means that one of your family is an imposter. Or was, anyway."

"What blasphemy is this?" Philby called out. "Someone in her family, an imposter? You're making no sense Maleficent!"

"Oh, but yes I am. For if she looks back far enough into her adopted family's history, she'll find that the woman she called 'mother' actually died only days after Isabel was sent to live with them."

"You're making this up!" Willa yelled. She was tired of people telling her that her whole life was based on lies.

"Am I?" Maleficent raised an eyebrow. She walked over to the table and grabbed a scroll that Willa had not noticed before.

Maleficent walked over and handed it to Willa. "See for yourself, my dear."

As Philby watched Willa read over the scroll, he couldn't help but feel sympathy for her. Her whole life was built on lies. And the longer Maleficent was alive, the deeper the lies become. Philby couldn't help but wonder if Maleficent had made these lies up. What if Willa really wasn't Finn's sister? What if she's not really royalty? What if her whole life wasn't built on lies? What if Maleficen's version of the truth was the lie?

The what if's stopped coming when Willa let go of Philby's hand and dropped the scroll. She buried her head in her hands.

Philby placed a hand on her shoulder, for he knew that if he got much closer, Maleficent would hurt them—and the last thing he wanted was for Willa to get hurt.

"So you see I'm telling the truth." Maleficent said as she grabbed the scroll from the ground. "Someone was impersonating your adopted mother all of those years. Someone who wanted to hurt you."

"Leave me alone!" Willa's hands moved to her ears, as if to block out Maleficent's voice.

"Someone was there from the beginning. Watching you, feeding you, being there for you when you cried. They wanted to gain your trust, make you feel wanted, make you feel loved. Why Isabel? Why would someone do that?"

"STOP IT!" Philby yelled, but Maleficent didn't seem to hear him. She got down on one knee and leaned in close to Willa's face. If the guard hadn't come out of nowhere to restrain him, he would have lunged for her.

"Someone wanted you to suffer the way that you did. Someone made sure you ended up in my dungeon for four years, only to escape with the help of Jezebel."

Maleficent's smile grew wider and Philby tried so hard to get away from the guard holding him back.

"But luckily for you and I, Isabel. Someone brought us together again. Someone wanted to see you suffer…again."

"Leave me alone! I've done nothing against you Maleficent! Why do you insist on doing this to me?" Willa's weak and pained voice broke Philby's heart.

"Because, my dear." Maleficent stood up and walked over to Philby. Now there were two guards restraining him, but Philby was not going to give up yet.

"I need someone brave and strong to help me with a special project of mine. And the only way I can get that person to help is through you." Maleficent's hand stroked Philby's face. His anger was spreading fast. He could see red spots in his vision.

Philby had never felt this angry before in his life.

"I need you, Isabel to help me. And if you do so, both of you shall have the happy ending to your precious little love story, I assure you that."

Something about her smirk convinced Philby that the ending to their love story would be anything but happy.

"So, what do you say, Isabel? Will you help me?"

"DON'T HELP HER ISABEL! SHE'S LYING TO YOU!"Philby yelled as fast as he could. A third guard came out of no where and gagged him, cutting his voice off.

"Don't listen to him, Isabel." Maleficent's alleviating voice created a different ambiance in the room. The tension that once filled the room vanished without a trace. Now it was just Willa and Maleficent.

Maleficent walked over to the table and picked up the flask on the end. "Listen to me, my dear. All you have to do is drink this and both of you shall be saved."

Philby shook his head furiously.

Willa looked up at Maleficent for a split second before glancing over at Philby.

"How will that flask save us both?" Willa asked Maleficent without taking her eyes off of Philby.

"If I could explain the workings of magic to you my dear, I would." Maleficent sighed dramatically. "But alas, I cannot."

Philby wished he could say something, but the gag rendered him involuntarily speechless.

Something about Maleficent's voice was different, but Philby couldn't figure out what.

"So, Isabel. The choice is yours."

Willa turned her head and look up at Maleficent. Maleficent held out the flask to her.

"You can either drink this, and save both you and your husband." The sparkle in Maleficent's eye was screaming deception and horrors to Philby. He just hoped and prayed that his wife was seeing the same thing as him. "Or you can choose not to drink this, and your husband will die a slow painful death and you will be forced to watch."

Willa's eyes widened.

No, no, no, no, no, Isabel! Don't listen to her! It's a lose-lose situation! We can't win! She's not going to save either of us! Philby wished he could say these things to her now, but he couldn't.

"So, Isabel, which choice do you choose?"

Sorry guys, I had to. This is by far the longest chapter I've ever written. I couldn't write too much more, or I would never be able to find a good stopping point!

I hope y'all enjoyed that one as much as I did! Please review! I want to know what y'all are thinking so far of the story! And be completely honest. If you think I'm evil for creating all of these cliffhangers (cough, cough, PrincessWilla101, cough cough), tell me! Or if you have something nicer to say, that works too! I'll update as soon as I can! Enjoy the rest of your day/night! :)